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August 14, 2015 4:19 pmAugust 14, 2015 4:19 pm

This is a blog post about fanatical centrists, British debt history, and ponies.

Start with the fanatical centrists: Martin Longman flies into a well-justified rage over a “centrist” column that concedes that the Iran deal is something we really need to do, effectively concedes that the arguments of the deal’s opponents are scurrilous and irresponsible — but condemns Obama for being “dismissive” of the opponents’ arguments.

That’s something that happens to me all the time. I constantly get mail — and sometimes other peoples’ columns — condemning me, not for being wrong, but for being dismissive of the arguments of those I criticize. After all, these are important people, so they deserve to be treated with respect. Right?

Wrong.

If people consistently make logically incoherent, ignorant arguments, the duty of a commentator is to say just that — not to mislead readers by pretending that they’re actually serious and making sense. You shouldn’t make gratuitous insults — I have never, to my knowledge, declared that someone’s mother was a hamster and his father smelt of elderberries. But stupid/ignorant is as stupid/ignorant does, and influence changes nothing.

Where I’ve been getting pushback lately is in my pronouncements that the whole Republican field is talking nonsense on economic policy. That’s a terrible thing to say, I’m told. But what if it’s true? And of course it is.

Consider a couple of recent entries. Jeb Bush, the supposedly sensible candidate, has been pushing the utterly ludicrous claim that he can deliver 4 percent growth; so now Mike Huckabee is trying to one-up the debate by promising 6 percent. Well, I can beat any of them — whatever they’re promising, I promise the same, and a pony.

Meanwhile, Rand Paul is decrying the irresponsibility of U.S. fiscal management; why, we haven’t been debt-free since 1835. Clearly, disaster looms, and has been looming for 180 years. But that’s nothing: Britain hasn’t been debt-free since at least 1692:

Photo

Credit

More than three centuries, spanning the Industrial Revolution and much more, of crippling irresponsibility. Just you wait!

Should Rand and Jeb! and Huckabee be treated with respect here? Are they outliers, and in that case which GOP contenders do deserve respect?

I know that it’s disturbing to read columns that portray the entire field as a bunch of cranks. But it would be a dereliction of duty, basically an act of dishonest reporting, to pretend that they aren’t. I’m all for respect here — but the people who deserve respect, in the form of honest assessment, are my readers.